Ken Tullett gave a very interesting talk at the Genealogy Group meeting 8th Feb. He used his talk to illustrate how service records can fill gaps between census records and can give an excellent insight into personalities and characters.
Ken told us about his relations the Wells and began the talk with a photo taken 1883 showing George Senior, his wife Maria and their 10 children, aged from 21 to a babe in arms.
The Wells boys followed their father into the Navy – clearly a long family tradition. Two boys were singled out for this talk – Charlie (the “Bad Lad”) and George Junior (the “Sad Lad’).
Charlie was the babe in the photo which was taken in 1883. In 1901 age 26 he signed up for a 12 year term. Ken pointed out Charlie’s physical description on sign up gave an early clue as to his character – ‘scar left side of neck’. The boy’s service record ended in 1910 with the abbreviation “SNLR” meaning services no longer required.
Ken talked us through the various misdemeanours highlighted during Charlie’s time in the Navy. They included a downgrade in his performance from Good to Fair in 1905, suggesting he was insubordinate. In the same year Charlie was consigned to the cells for 14 days and given a similar punishment in 1910.
Charlie served on a quite a number of vessels, which was rather unusual, but soon after moving to Victory in 1909 he was deemed too unruly for military service.
Despite this rather poor start Ken found Charlie redeemed himself on return home and even found a career and married.
Ken then turned to poor William who tried to follow his brother into the Navy as a stoker, of course. But after a short while he was landed from a ship into the Naval Hospital in Plymouth having contracted TB. He was then invalided out of the Navy quite quickly and died in St Thomas’ hospital in Lambeth, aged 20.
Ken showed us that whilst census records are good they only provided a once in ten years snapshot and that service records can give us lots of fascinating detail about our ancestors and their movements and activities.
Ken has promised to share more of his research and findings on other members of his family at a future meetings.
